Crescendo of Flames
by lostsoul512
Summary: "When the end finally came, it came in a brilliant explosion of emerald fire that streaked the sky and swallowed it whole." Wrathion and Anduin make their final stand against the Legion. (Mild fluff.)


**A/N: I feel like I have been utterly unproductive lately, and for that I am sorry. I've just felt super drained of any inspo. I hope this piece that I threw together will help make up for my absence. It actually turned out way cooler than I had expected it to, which is always a really satisfying feeling.**

 **Send me love; it may help break through some of my writer's block. As always, my heart goes out to all those that take the time to read my work. You guys are the reason I keep going. Mwah xx -Skye**

…

 _And on that day, you and I will face a terrible enemy. Perhaps we shall even do so as brothers_

 _-War Crimes-_

 **...**

When the end finally came, it came in a brilliant explosion of emerald fire that streaked the sky and swallowed it whole. The demons overran everything in their sight, and every attempt to hold them back was ruined, until they had torn the world apart piece by piece, until all that remained were the shattered fragments of what had once been Azeroth, all aglow with smoke and embers.

One by one they fell, every great warrior and mage and healer that had fought to protect the world. Their efforts mattered not, in the end. When the Legion came to devour, it left nothing behind, and this time there was no stopping them. The battle had raged on for weeks, each one leaving more dead bodies piled up, more defenders that had sacrificed their life for a world long lost.

The dead piled up, the demons grew stronger, and Anduin Wrynn watched from the top of the staircase of Stormwind Keep as the fires grew closer.

"Father," the prince said softly, without bothering to look at the man to his left. Once, the high king of Stormwind had stood tall, proud, unstoppable no matter what enemies tried to rise up against them. But now, his gaze was hollow and his shoulders were slumped. "They are coming."

Varian barely even lifted his chin. What little fight remained in him was slipping away. "I know," he replied, words so quiet Anduin wondered if he had spoken them at all.

Anduin balled his hands into fists at his side, dig his nails into his palms, focused on the pain he felt there instead of the pain he felt in the cavity of his chest, or echoing sounds of screams in the distance.

Another village fell.

The dead bodies piled up.

"Father," he repeated, this time with a bit more urgency. If Varian heard it, though, he gave no indication. "What are your orders?"

Anduin turned his head to try and catch a glimpse of the warrior king's expression, to see if he could find any spark of the former fires that had driven him. And for the briefest, most fleeting of seconds, he thought that maybe he did. The thought might have made him smile, just the slightest ghost of a grin that would tug at the corners of his lips, if only smiling was something he remembered how to do so.

"What are your orders?" He asked again.

Varian lifted his chin, blinked slowly, stared out at what remained of his kingdom. "We fight them back," he said at last, and when he turned to face his son, his eyes were the clearest Anduin has seen them in as long as he could remember. "We fight them back, or we die trying."

Anduin sucked in a greedy breath, let it out in the slow hiss of a sigh.

They both knew which one it would be.

...

The battle raged on endlessly. The smell of blood and sweat and death permeated the air, suffocatingly thick. Everywhere he looked, more soldiers fell, the familiar faces of allies, of friends, twisted into pained expressions. Anduin couldn't seem to get to any of them fast enough to heal them, and so mostly he just managed to kneel at their sides in time to watch the life fade from their eyes. 

He was trying with all the strength he could muster to cling onto that last, desperate hope, but if he was being honest with himself, the chances of survival were looking bleak. They were outnumbered. They were outmatched. They were all going to die. All that they had worked for, all that they had fought for, burned up in a flash by the Legion. All the sacrifice had been for nothing.

The thought had barely formed in his mind when a loud, echoing cry rang out from somewhere the in the distance. A great shadow fell upon him, fell upon the entire battlefield, swallowing everything up in its imposing darkness. The cry sounded again, much closer than before, drowning out all all the rest of the sounds of war.

Anduin whirled around towards the source of the noise, his blue eyes looking up towards the skies just in time to see a wave of fire descend onto the field, searing everything in its path until only ashes remained. In spite of himself, in spite of the dread and hopelessness that had consumed him, the human felt a burst of giddy laughter at the magnificent sight.

Black wings stretched across the horizon, blotted out the sun and the emerald fires, For one single moment, the world had grinded to a halt, demons and allies alike frozen in some twisted combination of awe and terror at the massive creature that hovered over them. Another crescendo of flames lit up the battlefield, and then the dragon descended, landing with a surprising amount of grace beside the human prince.

In a blur of color and movement, he had shifted forms, leaving a tall, lithe, dark-skinned man standing where the enormous creature had just been. The grin that he offered was far too devious, far too _cheerful_ for their present situation. But Anduin didn't mind, not really, and he found himself practically mirroring the expression when he felt a hand land upon his shoulder.

"About time you showed up, Wrathion," he said, blue eyes meeting crimson in a soft gaze that said far more than Anduin had time to express with words.

Wrathion gave his shoulder a gentle, short squeeze. "My dear prince," he murmured, his voice as silky and velvety as ever. "I have been waiting this moment for my entire life. Did you really believe I would miss it?"

Anduin dipped his chin, that same smirk tugging at his lips. Never mind the fact that all the world was up in flames and hell itself was knocking at his front gate. Never mind the fact that less than half of their army remained, and that this was likely the last day he would ever draw a breath. At least when they went down, they would go down together.

When at last he met the gaze of the black dragon once more, it was with a new fire burning there, some hope he had long since forgotten having been reignited within him. "Shall we, then, brother?"

Wrathion finally retracted his hand from the human's shoulder, instead reaching out to lace their fingers together in a brief, reassuring grasp. "Let's end this."

…

With Wrathion's reign of fire falling upon them from above, massacring the demons as it did, Anduin felt the tides turning. Or perhaps it was just a new sense of optimism that hadn't been there before, making him feel, for the first time in as long as he could remember, that maybe they might actually stand a chance. It wasn't over until the last one of them fell, and if he had anything to say about it, that wasn't going to happen. They had worked too hard, had come too far, and Anduin would be damned if he was just going to hang his head and allow the Legion to rip their world apart.

The battle raged on, the dead bodies piled up, but now there were just as many demons, and the soldiers were fighting harder than ever, desperate to cling to these moments out of fear that they may be the last. Desperate to fight on so that they might live to see another day. Anduin felt the power of the Light surged through him, filling him entirely, this all-consuming glow and warmth and strength that drove him on. It manifested in the form of a golden fluorescence that snaked around the injured and granted them some regained vitality, or a luminescent burst sent crashing into a demon to knock them back.

The sound of a familiar voice drew Anduin out of his concentration, a deep and harsh voice that he would have recognized anywhere but seemed especially fitting on the battlefield. Anduin spun on his heel so quickly that for a moment he thought he might lose his balance and fall to the ground, and when he had managed to regain his footing, it was to see his father standing in the shadow of a massive demon. The creature was terrifying, its body low to the ground, tail swaying each way as it shifted its weight on legs far too short to support its weight. Leathery wings unfurled against the smoke stained sky, and monstrous horns twisted down from its skull to frame either side of its smiling mouth.

And Varian was right in its path.

The king never so much as flinched, just raised Shalamayne in a silent beckon, ready to face the demon down all on his own. For a few long moments, Anduin was frozen in place, and could only watch as they locked in battle. Before he realized it, he was sprinting across the field, leaping out the way of swinging swords or bursts of magic, pushing harder because he needed to reach his father, needed to help him, because Varian couldn't possibly take it down alone. As if to prove his point, the demon landed a blow on Varian's shoulder, sending him flying back a few feet and collapsing to the ground.

So close. He was so close to him, just a bit farther. Anduin could feel the Light moving through him, in him, growing stronger until it was ready to burst from him. Varian had managed to stagger back up to his feet, and had lunged right back into the fight, the low light of the setting sun glinting off the edges of his famed blade. Anduin was close enough now to send a wave of Light towards his father, but before he could will himself to do so, the demon swatted Varian aside again with far too much ease. He lumbered towards the fallen king, lifting his own weapon, ready to drive it down into his chest.

Anduin could feel a scream tearing free from his lungs, could feel the way it shredded and ripped at his throat, but he couldn't hear a damn thing, couldn't see anything except the scene before him, the demon's shoulders shifting as he started bring down his blade. But then, all at once, a flash of movement flitted past its face, drawing its attention away from the human. Anduin felt himself breathe a sigh of relief, and swore he heard something like a taunting laugh coming from Wrathion as he thrusted back up towards the sky.

The distraction offered Varian a chance to clamber back to his feet once again, retrieving Shalamayne from where it had been strewn and stumbling towards his son. In an instant, Anduin's hands were upon him, Light spiralling around him and healing where he had been wounded. "You're alright," the prince whispered, the words repeated until they blurred into each other, unsure if he was even really talking to his father, or if they were meant for himself.

His eyes flickered back to Wrathion just in time to see the dragon plummet back towards the ground, unleashing fires upon the great demon, earning a hideous screech of pain from the monster. He flipped around, ready to climb back up into the clouds.

But before he could, the demon swung its weapon in an arching motion, and suddenly the air was filled with the horrible sound of Wrathion's screams as the blade managed to tear through the fabric of his wing.

Wrathion's name fell from Anduin's lips in an anguished cry as he watched the black dragon tumble to the ground, heaving in pain as he collapsed. The human threw himself towards him, only to find Varian gripping him tightly by the wrist and yanking him back. Struggling against his father's grip, Anduin called upon the Light once more, channeling it towards his friend, his brother, his lover, his everything, praying that it would heal him enough to get up and fight, because damn it, he wasn't going to stand here and watch him die.

The pain of crashing into the ground was enough to cause Wrathion to howl, an agonizing and echoing sound that rose about the clamor of the battle, above the dull roar of war that had filled the air for so long Anduin hardly even noticed it any longer. But this, he was painfully aware of, the loud cries of the dragon as his wings folded in upon themselves and he collided with the hard dirt. The demon was approaching him now, and although Wrathion was trying to ward him off with swings of his powerful tail and vicious snarls, but he was trapped on the ground, and his body was aching from the crash.

As if on queue, a mass of the remaining demons began to swarm him, and between his weakness and inability to get away, they managed to land quite a few blows on him. Wrathion fought with all the strength he could muster, the last person likely to go down without a fight, but even with the soldiers that flocked to his side in aid, it was quickly becoming too much. And all the while Anduin was forced to watch with tears streaming down his face, with the dragon's name falling from his lips, and when at last Varian released his hold just to go and help, Anduin found himself unable to take a single step closer, frozen in place with an overwhelming fear that in a matter of seconds the last black dragon would fall.

And then, suddenly, a great bolt of lightning shattered the twilight sky, ripping through the clouds and plummeting down towards the ground, striking the massive demon down in an instant. The sound was so deafening that Anduin jumped from the shock; the rapid movement caused him to lose his footing and collapse, his head thudding against the ground as he did. The final thing he recalled was a half-formed cry on his lips, the sound of his Wrathion's screams in his ears, and the sight of a familiar orc, wielding an enormous hammer, standing on the horizon.

...

A thin trail of sunlight trickled in through the cracks in the curtain, spilled across the stone floor and sliced through the darkness that had filled the room, and finally fell upon the slumbering form in the bed.

He opened his eyes slowly, one and then the other, blinking himself into consciousness. The view of the ceiling didn't do much to offer any indication as to where he was, but when he tried to push himself up into a sitting position, an agonizingly sharp pain shot through every inch of his body, manifesting itself in the form of a sudden, strangled cry.

In an instant, a shadow fell over him, warm hands brushing aside his hair, ghosting over his bare chest. "Wrathion," a soft voice murmured, gentle and reassuring, tinged with an undeniable relief. "You're awake."

Wrathion felt a biting remark forming on his tongue, but before it could make it past his lips, it was swallowed up in a gasp as another wave of pain crashed into him, washing through him from his legs up to his head. Groaning a little, he tried to move his hand up to press it to his temple, but found that he was unable to shift more than an inch or so, and when he craned his neck, with some difficulty, to look down, he saw that most of his upper body was wrapped in gauze. It covered his chest and a good portion of his abdomen, twisted around his shoulder and locked it into place against him. Using his other arm, he was able to flip back the blankets enough to see that the bandages continued down, tightly encasing his right leg, making it utterly immovable.

"What-" he started to ask, but stopped when he heard the hoarseness of his own voice. Anduin must have noticed too, for a moment later he had vanished from the side of the bed and then reappeared to thrust a glass of water towards the dragon.

"Happened?" Anduin finished for him, tilting his head to the side. It took him a moment to realize that Wrathion wasn't actually able to take the glass from him, which brought a slight blush to his cheeks before he gently nudged it against his mouth so he could drink. The resulting effect was about half of the liquid making it into Wrathion's mouth, the rest dripping down his chin to fall onto his chest. "Well, we won."

Wrathion gave a soft snort of laughter at that. "Yes," he retorted dryly. "I was able to gather that much due to the fact that we are having this conversation." Anduin resisted the urge to reach out and playfully smack the dark haired man, opting instead to merely scowl at him before turning to set the emptied cup on the bedside table. Wrathion waited until the human was facing him again to continue on. "I was more so referring to the, ah, fact that I am wrapped up like a…" He trailed off, frowning at his uncharacteristic loss for words brought on by the continuous hurt that coursed through him.

In spite of the whole situation, Anduin couldn't help but crack a small grin. "A Winter Veil present."

Wrathion arched a brow, the slightest ghost of smirk upon his own lips. "Yes, that," he replied. "You know I hate it when you finish my sentences for me, my dear prince. I am quite capable of- agh!" This time, he really did give a short cry; apparently trying to shift his legs in any way at all was something he needed to avoid doing for the foreseeable future.

Anduin's features immediately rearranged into a worried look as he pulled back the sheets to examine the wounded limbs, his hands hovering over the dragon's body, a dull golden glow beginning to radiate from somewhere deep within him. "Actually," he spoke slowly. "I'm afraid to tell you that you won't be very capable of anything for quite some time." Wrathion couldn't help but feel that there was a bit too much cheerfulness in Anduin's tone, as if he was reaping some sense of enjoyment from this fact. He tried to tell himself that it was just the residual happiness from their apparent victory against the Legion, of which he was a bit more disappointed than he cared to admit that he seemed to possess no current memory.

"It does seem that I took quite a beating," Wrathion said, pursing his lips. "What's the damage?"

Anduin closed his eyes for a moment too long, images of that horrific moment flickering across his mind. He snapped them open again quickly, trying to blink those memories away. "You, uh," he stuttered, "broke your leg, cracked a few ribs, dislocated your shoulder and took a nasty bump to the head."

Wrathion knew that this was hardly a laughing matter, and yet a humorless chuckle escaped his lips before he was able to stop it. "Why do all of those things sound vaguely familiar to me?"

The black dragon's expression grew somber then. "I remember...the pit lord sliced through my wing, and- and there were so many of them." There was a surprising softness in Wrathion's words as he tried to sift through his blurry memories and recall what had occurred in those detrimental moments.

Anduin felt his heart lurch at the tone with which the dragon spoke; in all of his imagined scenarios of this moment, he had envisioned Wrathion boasting loudly about all of his accomplishments, assuring everyone that if not for his highly pivotal role in it all, they never would have managed to succeed, a statement that could not have been more true. Instead, he found a great display of vulnerability, of a weakness that Wrathion would have hated for anyone to see. Anyone but him, at least.

At last, with a small ray of the Light having snaked its way around Wrathion's body to offer some alleviation to his injuries, Anduin removed his hands. He sat very carefully on the edge of the bed, avoiding any contact with the other man, and twisted his body to give Wrathion a long, hard, serious look. "You saved my father's life."

Wrathion was grateful that his dark skin concealed the blush that crept onto his cheeks. "Yeah, well," he murmured, but it seemed that for once he had no snarky comment to provide. Instead, he surprised Anduin by, with a great amount of effort, patting the bed at his side. Anduin's brows shot up, his cerulean eyes filling with fear and hesitation, afraid that if he so much as breathed the wrong way he might inflict further pain upon him. He wondered if this was how Wrathion had felt about him, in those days so long ago, when it had been Anduin lying uselessly in the bed, and Wrathion sitting anxiously at his side.

After a few long moments, he finally dared to move, carefully positioning himself beside the dragon, lacing their fingers together. He wasn't sure how long they lay there, with Anduin's head resting on his shoulder that _wasn't_ removed from its socket, listening to the sound of Wrathion's shallow heartbeats, thanking the Light every few seconds that he still had a heartbeat to listen to.

"So, great and mighty Earthwarder" the human teased eventually, when the silence had dragged out long enough that he was honestly questioning whether or not the dragon was even still awake. "Now that we have defeated the Burning Legion, what _ever_ will be your new purpose?"

Wrathion made a low humming sound in the back of his throat, and somehow managed to crane his neck enough to brush his lips against Anduin's forehead, ignoring the throbbing hurt that the motion caused. "For now," he whispered, in a voice so low it was barely audible, a voice meant only for him, his brother, his lover, his everything. "My only purpose is to be here with you."


End file.
